MODES

International short works that explore how far the form of cinema is capable of bending. MODES

Ponto Final

International Shorts: Personal Journeys

TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 105 MIN.

TUE OCT 4 6:30 PM IN08 THU OCT 6 1:00 PM IN08

Before Birth

ÁLEX MENA, CARMEN JIMÉNEZ, SPAIN, 2022, 20 MIN. A documentary/diary lm that focuses on one of the directors, Álex Mena, who journeys to her grandmother’s village looking for a closure never realized after she died.

Firecracker Bullets

CHAD CHARLIE, USA, 2022, 14 MIN. In this personal documentary, Indigenous comedian Chad Charlie goes to participate in the Standing Rock occupation and has a transformative experience.

Ponto Final

MIGUEL LÓPEZ BERAZA, SPAIN/PORTUGAL, 2022, 23 MIN. The director returns to his parents’ home and talks them into playing roles in a lm he is making, addressing delicate personal and familial subjects in the process.

Will You Look at Me

SHULI HUANG, CHINA, 2022, 20 MIN. A 25-year-old gay man returns to his hometown in China after lm school, and re ects how his coming out as gay a ected (and continues to a ect) his mother.

For You Today the Light of the Sun Will Not Shine

ANDREA BORDOLI, SWITZERLAND, 2021, 19 MIN. Two construction workers wander through a hybrid natural-industrial zone by day and night, exploring and discovering seemingly insigni cant details.

Empire of My Melodious Mind

JEANNETTE LOUIE, USA, 2022, 9 MIN. The odds and ends within a single cabinet spark an interior rumination of the self, family, and culture that form the identity of an American-born Asian woman.

It’s Raining Frogs Outside

MODES 1

TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 79 MIN.

FRI SEP 30 6:30 PM STU MON OCT 3 6:30 PM STU FRI OCT 7 6:30 PM STU

Lake of Fire

NEOZOON, GERMANY, 2022, 11 MIN. Fear of death and interpretations of hell lter through online social bubbles to distill a singular divine message.

The Stopover

COLLECTIF FAIRE-PART (PAUL SHEMISI, NIZAR SALEH, ANNE REIJNIERS, ROB JACOBS), BELGIUM/DR CONGO, 2022, 14 MIN. Travelling from Kinshasa to Frankfurt, lmmakers Paul Shemisi and Nizar Saleh nd themselves unjustly relegated to airport purgatory.

Very, Very, Tremendously

GUANGLI LIU, CHINA/FRANCE, 2022, 12 MIN. Virtual currency and digital junk, along with virtual acts of production and consumption, interact with systems in our lived reality, highlighting their coexistence in geopolitical con icts.

It’s Raining Frogs Outside

MARIA ESTELA PAISO, PHILIPPINES, 2021, 14 MIN. Forced to return to the Philippines as the world abruptly closes, Maya recedes into a terrorizing solitude and a fever dream of mixed animation ensues.

The Earth Will Swallow it All

DOMINIK RITSZEL, POLAND, 2022, 9 MIN. A period of rapid modernization in Poland in the 1990s brought with it anxiety and fears in icted by hegemonic order and a complete disregard for the social costs or traumatic after-e ects.

Watch the Fire or Burn Inside it

CAROLINE POGGI, JONATHAN VINEL, FRANCE, 2022, 19 MIN. In Corsica, a woman chooses to care for the earth by burning it.

Parasite Family

MODES 2

TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 78 MIN.

SAT OCT 1 6:30 PM STU TUE OCT 4 6:30 PM STU SAT OCT 8 6:30 PM STU

Prelude Op. 28 No.2

JENNI TOIKKA, FINLAND, 2022, 9 MIN. Chopin’s notable repertory prelude now receives an updated treatment, with a shifting focal gaze and staging that implicates the performer as the listener and listener as the performer.

Laika

DEBORAH STRATMAN, USA, 2022, 5 MIN. Some forms we can only know by their shadow. Laika is an homage to the spirits of space test dogs, or any being we use in the name of progress.

Parasite Family

PRAPAT JIWARANGSAN, THAILAND, 2022, 6 MIN. Re-discovered lm negatives represent families of a uence who absorbed Thailand’s wealth, like parasites. The journey from analog to digital, and nally to AI-generated images, gradually evolves these captured faces into a new species of monster.

The Fruit Tree

ISABELLE TOLLENAERE, BELGIUM, 2022, 15 MIN. For Sharleece, looking out of the window of a house for rent in a desert town where she lives evokes unexpected memories of her childhood home in Los Angeles.

Saving Some Random Insigni cant Stories

ANNA VASOF, AUSTRIA/GREECE, 2022, 14 MIN. As a point of departure for Anna Vasof, a survey of the damage left by a ood in her parents’ house reveals a simple yet multilayered work about memory, loss, and how we deal with the past.

Neighbour Abdi

DOUWE DIJKSTRA, THE NETHERLANDS, 2022, 29 MIN. How can you understand a violent history? Abdi reenacts his life in Somalia, marked by war and criminality, with the help of lmmaker Douwe Dijkstra. They embark on a candid and investigative journey through Abdi’s painful past.

Perforated Realities

MODES 3

TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 67 MIN.

SUN OCT 2 6:30 PM STU WED OCT 5 6:30 PM STU SUN OCT 9 6:30 PM STU

back ip

NIKITA DIAKUR, GERMANY/FRANCE, 2022, 12 MIN. Given his own limited abilities and the present danger of physical injury, lmmaker Nikita Diakur decides to teach his computer-generated avatar to do a back ip.

Woman as Image, Man as Bearer of the Look

CARLOS VELANDIA, COLOMBIA, 2022, 8 MIN. Unpacking the male gaze by splicing together a staccato montage of found footage. An ode to obsessive deconstructionism emerges.

Zoon

JONATAN SCHWENK, GERMANY, 2022, 5 MIN. Salamander-like creatures copulate under the moonlight. A feast ensues, propelling a hungry group of forest dwellers to new heights.

Intermission

RÉKA BUCSI, HUNGARY, 2022, 5 MIN. Set to a minimalist score, simple dots and lines appear at rst, then connect, meet, and separate again, as the forms become ever more complex with time, celebrating the joy of ornamentation.

Perforated Realities

GUSTAF BROMS, SWEDEN, 2021, 16 MIN. As identi cation with the self slowly dissolves, the borders between beings evaporate and the environment disintegrates. This mirrored photo performance takes frames away rather than adding them, forming a myriad of sentient beings.

Hardly Working

TOTAL REFUSAL (SUSANNA FLOCK, ROBIN KLENGEL, LEONHARD MÜLLNER, MICHAEL STUMPF), AUSTRIA, 2022, 21 MIN. The Non-Playable Characters (NPCs) of the popular action-adventure game, Red Dead Redemption, break out of their routines momentarily to display their faultiness and present something touchingly human.